


Until I fall asleep

by Fleur_de_Violette



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU from season 8, Cas!Sam (is that even a tag), Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Dean and Sam as brothers, Gen, Hospital, Hugs, Hurt Sam, Mention of torture, References to Metatron, References to naomi, Sad with a Happy(ish) Ending, Sam have been possessed by every entity of this show, Sam loves everyone but himself, angel possession, angels didn't fell, but this is a cute story I swear, if you want to see it with Sastiel glasses go ahead, mension of the cage, mention of death (not as a character), references to lucifer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 23:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13868556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fleur_de_Violette/pseuds/Fleur_de_Violette
Summary: They stopped the trials, but Sam is still dying, and he fells like he’s dying useless and he’s abandoning his brother once again. He doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to sleep if it is not to wake up again.Human doctors can’t heal him. Angel grace can’t heal him from the outside, so Castiel tries something else.





	Until I fall asleep

**Author's Note:**

> Hey ! 
> 
> So this is a story that takes place directly after the end of season 8 except the angels didn't fall (the reason is kind of explained in the fic). 
> 
> This could be a standalone as well as a multichapter. I already have some ideas for another part, but this one could be read alone so don't worry. 
> 
> I apologize for all mistakes. I'm not a native English speaker and I'm not betaed, so there might be a lot. 
> 
> Enjoy !

“You want me to call Amelia?”

Sam looked up dubiously. Of all the things Dean might have said, he wasn’t expecting that one. Reading his brother face, the oldest hunter made an apologetic gesture.

“I don’t know man, her, or whoever you want.”

Sam broke eye contact, looking down. Whoever he wanted, hum? He knew his brother was desperate. He overheard the doctor telling him all they could was helping him go away without pain. That is was a matter of days and that they should call his friends and relatives to say goodbye. He also knew the only reason Dean wasn’t destroying everything in the hospital out of frustration was because he was too busy trying to hide his distress from his little brother. 

He was dying. There were no alternatives. Cas hadn’t shown any sign of being alive since he left for heaven to ask Metatron the truth, and the state of heaven was unknow. If Dean had prayed, no angel had answered. He was dying, he was leaving his brother alone, and it was so stupid, because if he was dying anyway, he might as well have closed hell for good. 

God, he was so tired. 

As much as he wanted to sleep, he feared doing so. Ever since he was a kid, he was afraid nightmares would hunt him, he was afraid a monster would attack him. Now, he was afraid he wouldn’t wake up. 

He wanted to say goodbye. He didn’t want to die like Jess, like his dad, like Bobby. He wanted to die having said everything he wanted to tell his brother. He wanted to die having said his goodbyes. But not to Amelia. Amelia didn’t need to know the man she lived with had barely made it to 30. He preferred her to think he had made his life somewhere else. He preferred her to remember the broken but trying to heal man he had been, instead of the dying mess he was. He didn’t want her to see him. He didn’t want anyone to see him. 

He just wanted to rest. 

But he couldn’t leave Dean alone. Not now. Not after all this time. Because he knew for a fact that being left alone with no one in the world was unbearable. Dean had to have someone with him when he would disappear. And since Castiel wasn’t there…

“Charlie…”

Was that even his voice? Instead of the strong request he wanted to make, the name had come out as a whimper, without a full sentence.  
Dean’s hand lost itself in his hairs, gently pushing it of his face. 

“Ok kiddo, ok…” his voice was calm, but shivering, and somehow gratefulness that there was something he could do. “Ok, I’m gonna call her…” 

But the older hunter made no move. Because taking his phone would have required him to get his hands out of where they were: comforting his brother. Sam’s eyes closed, his body relaxing into the touch.

Before reopening quickly. He took a deep, strangled breath. He couldn’t sleep. Not now. Not yet. 

Dean sighed, as his hand continued its smoothing move. 

“You can rest. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Sam felt his eyes watering. He knew his brother wouldn’t leave him. He was the one how abandoned his family on a daily basis. 

His last thought before he gave up to slumber was that he had failed Dean again.

* * *

Opening his eyes was hard. It was hard since the second trial, if he was honest with himself, but it seemed like it was harder and harder every time he woke up. One more reasons he didn’t want to sleep. 

He probably hadn’t been unconscious for long, maybe for twenty or thirty minutes, which meant his next painkiller dose wasn’t due until a few hours, and yet every part of his body started to hurt again, breathing becoming difficult despite the nasal canula. 

But he could hear Dean’s voice, so Dean was here, and there was no way he would abandon his brother again, so he opened his eyes. He gathered all his willpower and opened his eyes.

Dean was apparently on the phone with someone, one of his hands still on Sam’s, and the light that appeared in his eyes as he saw his brother awake was worth all the pain Sam went in to wake up. 

“Hey, look who is there…” Dean was speaking too fast, too low. His eyes were red. In less than half an hour, he had considered the option that his brother would stay asleep forever. If he hadn’t wanted to scare Sam, he had failed. He tried to act cool but even drugged and tiered, his brother knew otherwise. Hell, even a stranger wouldn’t buy his show right now. He showed the phone “That’s Charlie. You want to talk to her?”

Sam slowly nodded and within seconds, the phone was near his ear. 

“Hi Sam,” Charlie’s voice was hesitant, like she didn’t know exactly what to said. Sam couldn’t blame her, because who would? “I heard you weren’t doing so well”  
If his friend hadn’t sounded so close to cry, Sam would have sneered at that.

“I’m…” She took a deep breath “I’m pretty far from you right now, but I can be there in a day, two tops. Just… hang in there until I arrive ok.” 

“I…” Sam’s voice was hoarse and talking hurt “I’m counting on you.” 

He heard what sounded like a muffled sob on the other side of the line, and somehow it warmed his heart. Someone would cry him. He knew Dean would probably cry, but Dean would cry his little brother. The kid he raised. Charlie would cry him as an adult, as he was with his broken soul and the weight of his mistakes on his shoulders. He knew it was selfish, and the reason he needed her was to prevent Dean for doing anything stupid, but the idea of having someone crying for him was comforting. 

“I’ll be there. Don’t worry, I’ll be…” she answered, before letting an uncomfortable silence settle in. 

Sam didn’t really know what to said. He just settled for a weak “Thank you” hopping she would understand without telling her that she would have to take care of Dean.  
After another silence, she spoke again. “I’ll definitely see you tomorrow, okay?” And then repeated, when she obtained no answer “okay Sam?” 

The man sighed an “okay”, already exhausted, before letting the phone fall back in Dean’s hand. If his brother kept talking with their friend afterwards, he hadn’t the energy to understand it.

When he focused again, the phone was on the nightstand and Dean was gently rubbing his left palm, where was left the scar of a wound that helped him staying put in reality two years prior. He was talking in a soothing voice, remembering or inventing stories from their childhood.

“Dad was hunting a Ghoul, and we were alone for a week, and the motel office lady kept treating us almond paste angels, saying that it will make us good boys. At some point we had so much that we started sealing them at school.” 

Angels… he didn’t remember that, but he could only think of one thing when it came to angels. 

“Any news on Cas?”

He really should stop talking if his brother made that face every time he heard his voice. But Dean seemed somehow relived that he was coherent. 

“Don’t worry about Cas okay? Worry about getting better.” 

Sam knew he wouldn’t get better. He also knew his brother was as worried as he was about Castiel. But he couldn’t say any of that. So instead he just let his head fall back with a pained sigh. 

“Why don’t you try and get some more sleep?”

Sam closed his eyes against the light. He didn’t want to sleep. He had never liked sleep. Sleep was scary, and it was a moment where he couldn’t react to anything. It was like being dead. And he didn’t want to be dead. Not now, not yet, not ever. 

He was dying, and he was scared. 

“I don’t want to…” 

Like when he was a kid, when his brother and father left him behind and he spent all night reading with a flashlight, because he didn’t want to sleep alone. Because what if something happened to his family and he was needed? Because who would patch them up if they came home wounded? Who would patch Dean up after a hard hunt if he died today? How would back up his brother in case of need, and who would protect him from other and himself? 

He vaguely heard the sound of the heart monitor speeding, and Dean whispering calming worlds to him. But all he could think about was the fact that he was letting him down, abandoning him, again. All he could think about was that he was going to die and leave his brother alone, that he was going to die and be alone. 

“I’m sorry…” 

A hand was on his hairs again. 

“Hey, no… what are you sorry for?” 

Sam laughed at that. A strangled, sobbing laugh that put him in a world of pain, but he laughed. Because wasn’t Dean the one who told him exactly what he should be sorry for not one day before? 

_Ruby, killing Lilith, letting Lucifer out, losing your soul, not looking for me when I went to purgatory…_

His greatest sin. Abandoning his brother. And he was going to do it again. After everything he was going to do it again. There were no number of apologies that could ever wash it down.

_Where do I start, to even look for forgiveness?_

He had given Crowley an answer, but if he was honest with himself, he didn’t know. 

How about starting with not dying useless, scared and pitiful? 

There were thousands of things he still needed to tell his brother. There were thousand of things he needed to fix, or at least try to fix. 

But what came out of his mouth was a weak “I don’t wanna die…” and that was not what he wanted to say. 

Not what he should have said. 

Because the hand in his went away, and he heard the sound of the door closing, someone yelling and something crashing in the distance. 

And then something crashing really really close. 

Like, in his bed close. 

And when he opened his eyes, he saw Dean by the door, who had entered the room in a hurry, and Castiel, as well as another, smaller guy in a Weiner Hut outfit Sam could swear he had seen before, half tangled in the wires that were supposed to keep him alive and free of pain, half on him. 

“Cas? Alfie?”

Alfie? Wasn’t him the angel they met when trying to get back the demon tablet, and they failed to save from Crowley? Sam felt like he was supposed to be dead, but before he could assess the situation, Castiel, having untangled himself and now standing in the room, started talking very quickly. 

“We don’t have much time, Naomi is dead, Metatron is after us, he lied about the angels’ trials, now he needs my grace in order to cast angels out of heaven. I don’t know why he wants to do such a thing, but I know I need to prevent that at all cost. Dean, Sam, you two are the only one I can trust with that. Do you know a safe place?” 

Sam waited until he heard Dean’s voice articulate “Wait, what?” to realize his mouth was opening and closing frenetically, like a fish out of water. His older brother continued: 

“First of all, what is Alfie doing here? Weren’t you supposed to be dead?”

The younger angel looked at him.

“I don’t know how I’m alive, I don’t know why me. All I know is that I woke up with the knowledge that I couldn’t let Metatron get his hands on Castiel. I think… I think dad has something to do with this. And my name is Samandriel by the way.”

The oldest angel put himself in front of his brother.

“Samandriel saved me, and I trust him. Dean please, I can explain everything, but we need to go to somewhere warded. We don’t have much time.”

Dean sighed “Ok, no, we can’t. We won’t. Sammy can barely move, I’m not risking transporting him to the bunker.”

Sam looked at him. He knew his brother was right. He couldn’t go to the bunker, and they couldn’t let the two angels go hopping Kevin would know how to let them enter and ward the place back. But Dean could go. Dean could make the way to the bunker and back. He didn’t want to be left alone, but he couldn’t be demanding, considering the situation. Besides, they owed Cas that much. He was about to say something, but before he could open his mouth, Dean cut him:

“I know what you’re thinking and no. I’m not leaving you, I won’t make the same mistake twice in a day.”

The younger brother sighed.

“Dean, I won’t move or do anything stupid. You know I won’t. The doctor said I’ll be alright for a couple of day, we have time. And Charlie is on her way.”  
The doctor hadn’t exactly said that, but he hoped his brother got the general idea.

“Couple of days? Your human doctor said that?”

Two pair of eyes turned to Samandriel, who just talked. Castiel kept his gaze on Sam, like he was examining him. The smaller angel explained himself.

“I mean, I’m surprised that you’re even awake in the state you are in. Your internals organs are a mess, it would be a miracle if you’re still alive in two hours, let alone coherent. It’s practically a miracle that you are now.”

Seeing Dean’s killer’s eyes on him, he added “I’m sorry, I really am. You seemed like a good human being, Sam Winchester, and I’m saddened to see you that way. But there is nothing we can do.”

The lump in Sam’s throat had nothing to do with the after effects of the trials. When he talked, his voice was barely a whisper.

“So? That doesn’t change anything. If anything, Dean should go with you quicker to avoid being suspicious to the hospital staff.”

If looks could kill, his brother’s would have shortened his two hours. Dean turned toward him, and was ready to explode any moment when Castiel, who had stayed silent the entire time, shortened the distance between them and put two fingers on his forehead. Sam immediately sensed his friend’s grace flowing trough him. The warm, healing and familiar feeling covered his body and momentarily covered his pain. Then, like water on a flat surface, it went away, leaving him the exact same. The angel looked at him curiously.

“Does it help?”

“A little I guess.” Sam lied.

The look in his friend eyes told him the angel didn’t believe him. Castiel seemed to be thinking for a while, before talking again.

“There might be a way. There is nothing we can do from the outside, but I might be able to heal him from the inside.”

Before Sam could proceed, Samandriel and Dean talked at the same time.

“That could work.”

“What do you mean?”

Castiel got up, looking at both Winchester brother.

“It means I might be able to heal Sam if I possess him. He’s a powerful vessel, my grace won’t hurt him, but I will be able to access to the part of his body that are damaged.”  
Something that was gone from Dean’s eyes started shining again.

“That’s wonderful, Cas, can you do that? I mean, save him?”

The angel didn’t answer, focusing again on the younger hunter.

“Sam? Be sure that I will regain Jimmy Novak as soon as you are out of danger.”

Sam closed his eyes. Every part of him wanted to say no. He didn’t want to be possessed by any entity. Not again. Never again. He didn’t want to live the horror he remembered from the time he was controlled by Meg, then Lucifer.

But Castiel wasn’t Meg, nor Lucifer. Castiel was their friend. Castiel would never hurt him.

Except it was the same Castiel who broke his wall. It was the same Castiel who lied to them and betrayed them. 

And Sam knew the angel had redeemed himself since. He knew Cas had done everything he could to be forgiven, sacrificing his own mental health. He whished with all his heart that he could trust Castiel. And he could. He could trust his angel friend with his life. He just didn’t know if he could trust him with the complete control of his body.

But then he opened his eyes and looked at his brother. He looked at the man he had abandoned the trials for. He looked at him, and he saw hope in his eyes. And he didn’t want to break that. He looked at his brother, and understood that he needed to live, whatever the cost was. If anything, for Dean. 

The first “ok” that got out of his mouth was barely above a murmur, but, after a shiver, the second “Yes. Yes, Cas, you can… You can possess me.” Was much stronger. He was still scared. He was still afraid. He was still disgusted by the shear thought of someone possessing him. But the look on Dean’s face told him he was doing the right thing. He could do it. For Dean. 

Castiel took his hand, and his voice was soft when he told him: 

“Thank you for trusting me, Sam.” 

And everything was lost in brightness.

* * *

Jimmy Novak once told them that being possessed by an angel was like being pinned on a comet. Sam couldn’t help but agree. Being possessed by Lucifer was like fighting inside a waterspout, except the water was burning cold, and he was naked. Castiel was different, especially because he knew he didn’t have to fight, but no less overwhelming. Everything was too loud, and he felt like taken in a crown movement. Hands were touching him, invading his privacy, going inside his mouth and restricting his airway. He couldn’t moan or cry. 

He didn’t want this. 

This was too much. 

He couldn’t. 

It was too much like _him_ , like the cage and he just couldn’t. Dean would have to understand, to forgive him, because he just couldn’t.

He wanted Cas to go away. He needed Cas to go away.

And just as he formulated the through, he found himself kneeling on the hospital floor.

He couldn’t breath any easier.

He was disconnected from the machines, he realized, but he had underestimated how bad he was hurt. He was burning, like he had been thrown in a liquid nitrogen bath, and he knew what it felt like. When he opened his mouth, something wet and thick leaked down his chin. Dean was on his side in a second, and he couldn’t tell his brother not to touch him, that he will only make things worse. He vaguely heard voices above him.

“What happened?”

“He rejected me. He forced me out.”

“Sam? Why would you do that? Why would he do that?”

“Perhaps the procedure was too hard to handle. It’s usually not, especially on strong vessels but with Lucifer, the cage, and the fact his body was used without a soul for more than a year, not to mention the effect of the trials…”

“I don’t care. Is there a way you can help him!? Sam? Hey, stay with me, you hear?”

The comforting answer he wanted to give to his brother died in a strangled breath, before he heard Samandriel closing by.

“Maybe I can put him asleep. That would make the grace insertion easier.”

Sam didn’t want to sleep. He knew it was irrational but something inside him told him that sleep was bad. Sleep was the end and he couldn’t sleep. 

“Then do it!” Dean yelled, frightening his brother even if Sam knew the anger wasn’t dedicated at him. “Hell, why didn’t you do it in the first place?”

Castiel was suddenly close to him again, his blue eyes scanning him.

“Sam, can you say yes again? We’ll make sure to make it easier on you.”

The hunter shacked his head weakly. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be possessed. He didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t know what he wanted. He turned toward his brother. 

In case of doubt, refer to Dean. That was what a childhood as a hunter and half a year of Lucifer hallucinations had taught him. So he turned toward Dean. And he saw pleading eyes and desperate tears. 

The “Sammy please” that got out of his brother’s mouth destroyed what was left of his fear. 

He was too weak to say “yes” but apparently Castiel didn’t need a verbal invitation, as long as he got an invitation at all. 

The angel put a hand and his face and smiled. In a second, the bright light was there again, and Sam braced himself for the atrocity he knew was coming.  
But two of Samandriel’s finger touched his forehead, and, despite every part of his body telling him that sleep was wrong, he mercifully blacked out. 

* * *

Sam woke up on the backseat of the Impala. Or on what looked like the backseat of the Impala. Castiel was sitting next to him, in his Jimmy Novak vessel, and he still had room for lying, which should have been impossible. When he looked at the front seat he saw it empty, even though the car was moving along a nameless road. He quickly seated and looked around him, confused. The constant pain he had grown familiar with in the past mouths was gone, leaving a feeling of emptiness. The first thought that came to his mind was that he had failed. He had fell asleep and abandoned his brother. He turned toward Cas. 

“Am I dead?”

He knew that if he was, he would probably see a reaper, and not his angel friend, but a reaper could take a lot of forms and he wasn’t sure of anything. Castiel smiled. 

“No. Your body is on the front seat of the Impala, under Dean’s care. We are going to the man of letters ‘bunker. I made sure all your organs are functioning enough to keep you alive, but you’re not ready to wake up yet.”

Sam absorbed the information and sighed. He wasn’t dead, and he would eventually be able to go back to Dean. He could do with that. He seated more comfortably on the leather.

“Where are we?”

His logic told him they were in some kind of imaginary world, but he couldn’t help but ask.

“We’re in the depts of your mind. I wanted you to wake up somewhere where you would be comfortable, so I asked your soul were “home” was. You took me here.” 

The hunter tilted his head. That sounded about right. The car has always been his home and he knew deep down that he cherished her as much as, if not somehow more than Dean. He closed his eyes for a moment, there was no music, but he could hear the familiar hum of the motor and the Legos hitting each other in the vents. He could also hear another noise, abnormal, who screamed to him to stop there and call Dean.

“There is something wrong with the engine.”

The angel nodded. 

“Yes. It seems that this is the way your mind has symbolized the effect of the trials on your body. I need to fix it, to fix _you_ before you’ll be able to drive on your own.”

“So, I’m the Impala?” The analogy made Sam smile. He remembered the time the trickster-Gabriel had changed him into the car. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience back then but sometimes Dean and he laughed about it. His brother had once told him in one of his soft moment that it was like fusing the two things he would protect at all cost and trust blindly. Sam didn’t know at witch extent this was true, but he was pretty sure the analogy stopped there. He wasn’t as obedient as the Impala, nor as reliable. 

Castiel just smiled at him.

“Yes, in some way, you are.”

They sat in silence for a while after that, the car still rolling on a road that would never lead them anywhere. At some point, Cas talked again, his voice hesitant.

“Sam.”

The younger Winchester turned toward him.

“I’m going to have to take control, now. Perhaps you should try and sleep for a while.”

Sam shook his head.

“No I’m not… I’m good. I don’t need to sleep.”

The angel sighed in a slightly exasperate way.

“Considering what happened when I first tried to possess you, I think it would be better for you to be asleep, or at least relaxed when I’ll start working on your body.” 

When the only reply he got was another shook of Sam’s head, Castiel tried again. 

“Sam. I can assure you that you’ll see everything I do with your body, and that if you want the control back, you’ll just have to ask. I just need to start working. I don’t know how much longer I can keep you breathing.” 

The hunter shook his head one more time, so the angel tried another approach. 

“Is it because of Lucifer?” 

Sam shook his head instinctively before thinking better.

“I don’t know.”

Nothing was really not about Lucifer since he got back from the cage. Even before that, he had the feeling that anything in his life has always been, and would always about Lucifer, like the devil had once told him. 

_All those times you ran away you weren’t running from them, you were running toward me._

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” 

Castiel’s voice distracted him from his dark thought, and he shook his head, repeating “I don’t know”, like a mantra. 

The angel tilted his head. 

“Can I hug you? Would it help?” 

The hunter let out a dry laugh. Castiel was more human than when they first met him, but he still had a lot to work on before he could pass as a perfect specimen of humankind. Sam opened his arms. 

“Come here.”

Before he knew it, Sam had his head buried in his friend’s neck. They must look stupid, two grown up men hugging in the backseat of the Impala, but he didn’t care. He felt arms patting his back, and something went around him, protecting him, like a large coat in winter. 

Two huge black wings. 

The wings weren’t like anything he ever saw before, and that was saying a lot. 

They were also damaged. Feather were missing at some parts, large pale scars tainting the uniformly black purity. 

“It’s okay. You’re not the only one who’ve been used until you broke. You’re not alone.”

Sam put his head up, suddenly remembering something important. 

“You’re not alone either, Cas, you got us. You know that, right?” 

The angel gently put his head back in his neck.

“I know. Thank you, Sam Winchester.” 

Sam mumbled something even he didn’t know what was supposed to mean. Castiel’s voice were soothing. He felt good. The angel didn’t have any body odor, and he just smelled the clean fabric of his clothes. 

He felt clean. 

Pure. 

And for the first time since what seemed like forever, Sam peacefully let his eyes close.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, positive and negative (as long as I can learn from it) feedback is appreciated. 
> 
> Have a nice day
> 
> Violette


End file.
